


And If It Takes Us All Night Long

by sosobriquet



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 16:24:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8408563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sosobriquet/pseuds/sosobriquet
Summary: Blue's family tells her stories.





	

 

“Jimi, would you tell me a bedtime story?” Blue asked, so quietly the sound of a car engine turning over in the driveway nearly drowned her out, and reached for her aunt’s hand.

 

Orla tittered from the kitchen, gearing up to tease her young cousin, but Jimi spoke over whatever she had been about to say.

 

“They’ll be just fine, you know,” she said, taking Blue’s small hand in hers and leading her up the stairs, “it’s only the church watch. The spirits of the future dead are as harmless as mist.”

 

“I know,” Blue said wistfully, letting go of Jimi’s hand to open her bedroom door.

 

“But I will tell you a story,” Jimi said, following Blue through the doorway, “that your mother and I enjoyed when we were girls.”

 

She settled herself into a chair crammed into a corner of the room while Blue changed into her pajamas, a favorite pair covered in brightly yellow ducklings. She used the stack of books formerly covering the seat of the chair as a footrest.

 

“Once upon a time,” she began, as Blue hurriedly tucked herself into bed, with her quilt pulled up to her ears. “There was a king who had a wife named Silver-tree, and their daughter’s name was Gold-tree…”

 

+++

 

“Oh, trouty, pretty little fellow,” Blue sang at an empty fish pond, pretending it was the well from Jimi’s story instead of a puddle filled with leaves and mud, “am I not the most beautiful queen in the world?”

 

“Of course you are,” answered Maura, startling Blue, who had not heard her telling Mrs. Thompson goodbye, and to please call if she needed anything.

 

“You know that’s not how the story goes, mom,” Blue told her, very seriously.

 

Maura laughed, ”It’s been so long since I’ve heard that story, why don’t you refresh my memory?”

  
  


+++++++++

  
  


A sneeze in the night caught Persephone’s attention as she wandered upstairs from the kitchen with an armful of snacks.

 

“Blue?” she called out quietly, trying to decide what to do with her supply of fuel for tomorrow’s thesis work. “What are you doing awake still?”

 

“I could ask you the same,” said Blue’s disembodied voice, muffled by her cold more than the door.

 

Persephone cracked the door and offered up a glass of water, having finally set aside her snack collection for it. “I have to prepare to work on my thesis, of course. You’re sick,” she said.

 

Blue sneezed again. “Probably why I’m not asleep,” she said sarcastically. “It’s just a cold anyway, you can come in.”

 

“If you can’t sleep, would you like a story?” Persephone suggested, passing the glass of water into Blue’s waiting hands. “Calla says my stories are very good at putting people to sleep.”

 

“You know I love a good story,” Blue said, wrinkling her nose against another sneeze.

 

Persephone rescued the water from her hands and set it on the nightstand just in time.

 

“Gesundheit,” she said gravely, fiddling with the awkward hump of blankets Blue had kicked to the foot of the bed in the heat.

 

“Thank you,” Blue said, sounding a little miserable, and reached for a tissue.

 

After a moment of silence, Persephone sat on the edge of the bed and said, “I believe I know just the story for you."

 

Sitting forward, Blue adjusted her pillows while she waited for Persephone to start, and then leaned back against them more comfortably.

 

“Once, there was a little village on the Gulf of Finland, where there lived a farmer, and his wife, and their many children…”

  


+++++++++

  
  


“I’ll tell you a story my mother used to tell me when I was young,” said Calla, her breath leaving a cloud in the chill air as she draped a blanket over her shoulders like a luxurious cape and seated herself on the old porch swing as regally as if it were a throne.

 

Blue tried to imitate the gesture, but her blanket bunched and folded messily around her, and her possibly even older wicker chair creaked awkwardly as she tried to get comfortable.

 

“There once was a large village at the edge of a lake,” Calla began, in ominous tones, when at last Blue and her chair were mostly quiet.

 

“Wait, this isn’t a scary story, is it?” Blue asked skeptically.

 

Calla’s smile was less reassuring than her promise that it wasn’t the least bit scary.

 

When Blue pointed this out, Calla laughed - loud enough to startle a small creature from under the bushes at the edge of the porch. “Have I ever misled you, darling?”

 

Blue shrugged and shook her head, so Calla continued.

 

“At one end of this village, there was a lodge where lived a great hunter, who was always invisible…”

 

+++

 

Maura didn’t question it when Blue asked if she could have the smudge stick when Maura was done clearing the air after the unpleasant, and thankfully last, customer. She always had liked the smell of burnt sage and lavender.

 

She did, however, have a few questions when she saw Blue standing in front of a mirror, smearing streaks of the dark ashes across her face.

 

The first one was simply, “Blue?”

 

“Hmm?” Blue hummed back, then, “Yeah?”

 

“What are you doing?”

 

“Cinderella, sort of,” Blue said, still smudging ash on her face.

 

Maura caught her eye in the mirror and gave her an expectant stare.

 

Sighing, Blue took a break from the mirror to explain. “I’m not doing the Disney version, obviously. More like Calla’s “rough face girl” and the original Cinderella stories, where they got called names for tending the fire and being covered in soot all the time.”

**Author's Note:**

> The fairytales I referenced/used, in order.
> 
>  
> 
> http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/cft/cft14.htm
> 
> http://www.uexpress.com/tell-me-a-story/2012/8/12/three-sneezes-an-estonian-folktale
> 
> https://www.sps186.org/downloads/basic/571615/Rough%20Face%20Girl.pdf


End file.
